By Dr. Philip Baczewski, Associate Director of Academic Computing

What's all this Fuss....

If Emily Litella were around today she'd probably say something like this: "What's all this fuss I hear about Internet bowsers. Why, I love dogs and I see no reason that we shouldn't have pictures of dogs on the Internet. Some of my favorite Web sites feature all breeds of dogs and you can find out a lot of good information about dogs on the Internet. So when I hear the Justice department and Microsoft arguing about Internet bowsers, I just think it's a ridiculous waste of time - what? Oh, it's about Internet browsers? ...Nevermind." [1]

Why should we be concerned about Internet browsers. After all, as long as you can still use your favorite one, why should there be a fuss? So Microsoft is going to ship Windows 98 with an Internet Explorer icon on the desktop. What will it matter in the long run?

Bring on the Competition

There's an interesting phenomenon in the computing industry that is frustrating to people in the short term, but beneficial to all in the long run. Any time you have two high-profile competing products, the advances in the technology of those products occur at a rapid pace. A good example is the past competition between WordStar and WordPerfect, and later between WordPerfect and Microsoft Word. People got tired of having to upgrade their word processor every six months or so just to keep up, but we have much better word processors today because that competition happened. Competition spurs advancements. Monopolies stifle advancement.

In the 1950s, IBM, which was previously content to sell card sorters, typewriters, and adding machines decided to use its sales force (one of the biggest around) to become a dominant player in the computer industry (what little of it existed at that time). What better way to sell computers than to sell ones that could read those same punched cards that had been around since the end of eighteenth century. IBM used its dominance in the business machines market to develop a virtual monopoly on business computers (and faced a number of its own antitrust suits along the way). During the Seventies and Eighties, some companies made hardware that worked like IBM computers, but IBM had firm control of the large-scale software operating system market. The result was a technology rooted in archaic and artificial limits (like an 80-character, i.e. punch card image, line size limit) which supported backward compatibility as one of its shining virtues.

In some ways, backward compatibility is a marvelous thing. If old programs keep working, you don't have to rewrite them; you don't have to modernize them. While the blanket of blame for the Year 2000 problem can't be laid exclusively at IBM's feet, you have to wonder if businesses and other organizations would be doing so much fixing of old COBOL code if those 1960s vintage programs had been long abandoned in favor of newer and smarter technologies. [2]

Browsing for Dollars

So, is competition good for technology? You bet! Is all this fuss about Microsoft and Internet Explorer all overblown? Not necessarily. IBM did not achieve their dominance in the business computing market over night. It came in gradual gains that cemented it firmly into place by 1980. Microsoft is gradually using its dominance in PC operating systems to get people to use Microsoft's browser, especially all those people who are buying their first computer mostly to use the Internet. It is no coincidence that as part of the deal in which Apple licensed its Quicktime digital video technology to Microsoft for a mere 150 million dollars, Microsoft got Apple to adopt Internet Explorer as its supported browser that now ships with all new Apple computers.

What's all the fuss about browsers? Well he (literally) who controls your browser controls your view of the Internet. Half or more of he World Wide Web consists of the Web servers on the Internet, but if you have a browser that can't utilize the technology being served by those sites, they might as well not be there. What's worse, is that your browser, through its built-in features can influence you towards certain Web sites at the exclusion of competing and possibly better alternatives. Without competition, one company determines how the Internet will look to you.

The Internet is built on collaborative standards, with multiple companies producing products that interoperate. With a variety of approaches come a variety of new advances and the best of these get adopted as new standards. As the IBM example shows, monopoly stifles true innovation. Lack of competition can lead to stagnation. Yes, Microsoft will tell you that they are looking out for their customers and integrating new technology features into their operating system, but Microsoft doesn't exist to create new technology (they buy more than they develop - even DOS wasn't Bill Gate's original idea). Microsoft exists to make money (just read about Bill Gates' house.) The best way to make money is to preserve and increase market share. The best way to increase market share is to eliminate competition.

The Once and Future Internet

So the fuss is really about what the Internet will look like in 20 years. Will it be a thriving and egalitarian international communications and commerce media, as accessible in libraries as it is in executive offices? Or will it be "television," A.K.A. a "wasteland" of commercial and meaningless information driving a consumption-based economy and culture, filling the coffers of a few very rich companies and people? All this fuss about browsers might just be the deciding factor. n

[1] For the juveniles (that's anyone under 30 to me these days) or pop-culturally-challenged among us who do not recognize the name "Emily Litella", it was a character portrayed on the original Saturday Night Live TV show by the late Gilda Radner, who would appear every so often with some unique commentary during the SNL News segment.

[2] By the way, it took a 5-10 year infusion of PCs in to the workplace, i.e. the "downsizing" fad, to finally break IBM's monopolistic position in the computing marketplace. A bunch of reorganizing and billions (yes with a "b") of dollars of loss later (including $800 Million in one year), IBM has reshaped itself into a company that competes in the computing market and is incorporating the latest technologies into its hardware and software product lines.